Does Miasma have a point?

I find it's just kind of a minor annoyance.

I could be doing it wrong, but to get any kind of bonus from you it you have to go pretty deep into Harmony and get techs that aren't otherwise useful.

So if you go anything but Harmony, miasma is just there. There's no bonuses to be had from it and at best you can make it a neutral tile modification, otherwise it's an annoyance.

And as for the internal lore of the game, I feel like they could have done something that made miasma more 'special' that you could do things with it or it would have some impact on your game other than 'minus X hp per turn' or 'plus X hp per turn if Harmony player'.


It just feels meh.....

Thoughts?

I get your point. I think that was the idea that only harmony profits from miasma while for the other affinties it's an annoyance. If I remember correctly you can get miasma bonuses from upgrades for your units (Brawler etc) without the specific techs (Miasmic condenser etc). I find it sometimes usful as a little barricade between me and an agressive neigbour, so I won't clear it out completly no matter what affinity I go....

But I agree, some more meaning would be nice. Not sure, but I think terrascapes are the only tile improvement affected by miasma (e.g. you can't build them). Would be nice to maybe get a little bonus if you clear out your territory from miasma while going Purity/Supremacy. Otherwise why spend some worker turns on clearing out miasma except for maybe strategic tiles where you want to station a unit (choke point, whatever reason else...).

OT: I just learned, that miasma was belived to be the cause of illness until the germ "theory" spread... Interesting

I like the miasma.
I do not see it as an annoyance but just a feature (like mountains or rivers) that one has to navigate around.

Whether or not I clear out miasma is totally a chance decision by myself - which is a really bad thing for a game mechanic.

There are a few very specific circumstances where I keep it (choke points, as mentioned above) but clearing it is solely a function of whether I have the workers needed to deal with it and feel inclined to deal with it for whatever reason. I never feel particularly inclined to either remove it or leave it.

Something like miasma should have concrete, tangible effects and should effect the fundamental strategies of players (it's all over the map, after all). But right now it's just meh....like I said, it's a flip of the dice as to whether I even acknowledge it's even there. It's a minor annoyance at best and a teeny bit of help at best. But it's effect on my strategy is almost nonexistent.

Well, Miasma is a very strong defense mechanism for harmony. Free healing for you, damage for attacking non-harmony units, combat bonus if you choose that unit upgrade.

It does feel quite different though, as its effect is entirely passive. and the fact that it doesn't really have any bonuses other than that combat bonus makes it completely optional when playing against the AI, as at the time you get miasma-healing they're usually already quite weak anyway.

I feel like Miasma should provide additional bonuses, maybe food. And there should be a possibility for Harmony to just drop a ton of miasma into the area that you want to attack. The miasmic condensor is just too slow to be interesting for offensive purposes and in your own lands solar satellites already take up all the space.

And of course, if you spam Miasma in your lands that actually prevents the AI from trading with you, thus losing you energy and science.

There are some problems with miasma mechanics

1) You can't get trade convoy immunity from it without getting Alien Hybridization (A Tier III leaf tech), so it will always be mostly a nuisance blocking routes (the most important thing), even when you are harmony.

2) The miasmic repulsor orbital is now buried underneath Ecology tech in the Alien Biology leaf tech. That's not a very good detour to make when Miasma is actually a problem to remove. (expansion, trade routes)

In the mod I proposed, I recommend moving the Miasmic Repulsor back to Alien Biology, so you can make the choice to use it to remove miasma. (and it actually gets built)

I also recommended putting convoy immunity into Alien Biology (so you have immunity for workers and convoys) so as Harmony you can make a choice to get this tech and route convoys through areas infested with Miasma.

I think the economic benefit of removing miasma for traderoutes is what makes the game interesting.

Likewise spreading miasma into AI lands with the condenser.

You can use it to isolate cities from trade routes, or control what trade routes go into a city.

It's just such a subtle feature. If anything Harmony should get increased tile yields from Miasma.

Thanks for all the tips above. While it is good to have 'subtle' mechanics, I think this one is too situational, too subtle to be really good.

Especially when you are playing a game set on an alien planet with this mysterious substance all over the map...that should NOT be subtle. You should have to deal with it, and plan to deal with it, from the outset. Not just ignore it and hope that in some small way down the road you get a free +10 health modifier on your one unit that happens to be in a spot where there is some miasma.

As for pumping miasma - the density of typical satellite networks makes this of very limited use, but when you can use it, that's great. But I've notice a lot of the AIs tend to go harmony anyways or get enough harmony points that it doesn't hurt them, so it becomes a moot point in most of my games.

hobbsyoyo said:

Thanks for all the tips above. While it is good to have 'subtle' mechanics, I think this one is too situational, too subtle to be really good.

Especially when you are playing a game set on an alien planet with this mysterious substance all over the map...that should NOT be subtle. You should have to deal with it, and plan to deal with it, from the outset. Not just ignore it and hope that in some small way down the road you get a free +10 health modifier on your one unit that happens to be in a spot where there is some miasma.

As for pumping miasma - the density of typical satellite networks makes this of very limited use, but when you can use it, that's great. But I've notice a lot of the AIs tend to go harmony anyways or get enough harmony points that it doesn't hurt them, so it becomes a moot point in most of my games.

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I think the point is that the aliens were supposed to be the creatures you have to deal with - but obviously, the way Civ works, they're just not. They were supposed to be the really obvious mechanic.

It would be different if they didn't take their cue from the player, but were aggressive or defensive from the outset. I.e. you were reacting to them, rather than them to you. Optimal play is obviously not to provoke them.

I'm not going to lie - it's definitely underwhelming.

Maybe it should do -20 per turn. But on the other hand, that would be OP.

I think the idea was that it would slow down your workers. If you planted a city in the middle of miasma, that's adding 3 turns to each improvement, or affecting your workers health and hence ability to stay there for long. (This is certainly the case with some of the longer expeditions, and if you check there's a mod "Warn when worker will die of Miasma". So people are noticing the point)

The issue is that it's such a subtle mechanic. If they did -20 per turn, or -10 per turn and poisoned the unit after they'd left the tile, then dumping miasma in chokepoints would be a good strategy for a war.

I actually do find that the aliens have to be dealt with. They are so powerful for the first part of the game that even ignoring them complicates things as they tend to randomly attack. I quite often find that early on, I have to formulate a plan of how I'm going to deal with aliens and then stick with it only to find that circumstances change and I change tack. That's fun for me.

Now I do wish that their love/hate disposition toward you would be faster to move away from hate. It seems that once they are there, they stay there, even if you leave them alone the entire game.

It's a nuisiance and a serious weapon for Harmony who will be able to harness Miasma as a weapon (by creating it, with Harmony player being protected from it and non-Harmony civs being hurt by it every turn).

hobbsyoyo said:

I actually do find that the aliens have to be dealt with. They are so powerful for the first part of the game that even ignoring them complicates things as they tend to randomly attack. I quite often find that early on, I have to formulate a plan of how I'm going to deal with aliens and then stick with it only to find that circumstances change and I change tack. That's fun for me.

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Maybe. I don't experience it that way. I ignore them. Maybe they attack me, maybe they don't, if they do it's generally when I've got ranged units to attack them with.

My basic plan is just to ignore them, purge them if I have to, and be opportunistic about capturing a nest.

I don't think Aliens should get more powerful as the game goes on. The major threat should be the other factions at that point.

When i tried be out for free, i had cleared out miasma after i figured out that miasma was damaging my units. I also found out that you can choose alien civilizations so miasma is also useful because that wag alien civilization units could heal.

TheKingOfBigOz said:

It's a nuisiance and a serious weapon for Harmony who will be able to harness Miasma as a weapon (by creating it, with Harmony player being protected from it and non-Harmony civs being hurt by it every turn).

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I would agree but I find that this strategy is far too situational and dependent on too many other factors to make a difference most of the time (see above for more details).

Velasti said:

I don't think Aliens should get more powerful as the game goes on. The major threat should be the other factions at that point.

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I don't either - sorry if I gave that impression! I actually like them as they are - a major potential threat that's hard to deal with at first, then a relative non-issue. I like them much, much better than the barbarians of past iterations of Civ.